Effect of In-Store Free Samples and Trials on Consumer’s Purchasing Intent

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Research on free specimens and trials is in fact huge to comprehend the most affecting instruments to contend with contenders. By this information, sponsors and retailers could better the course of action of their resources to get the competitive advantage. Along these lines this audit plan to investigate the effect of free examples and trials on purchaser buying behavior, promoters and retailers will have the capacity to mindful client conduct, so they can utilize the benefit and the best progression technique to pull in customers. From the purchaser perspective, this audit will reveal the customer perspective toward deals advancement and therefore raise the nature with purchasers about their lead that affected by arrangements progression. It additionally shows better recognition and data to buyers where their buy conduct will be influenced antagonistically because of free examples offered to them.

Free administration trial might be characterized as an offer to the customer to know-how, at no money related cost, all or part of a center, expanded or rearrange benefit from a supplier that the consumer does not right now utilize.

In-store sampling advancements also depend on various factors like the path in which the example is displayed, the nearness of customer to the sampling site, or whether the buyer was arranging an upfront investment the grouping that day. Any of these could impact a customer's decision of whether to take a free specimen and also to purchase the item. Another unique trademark for in-store inspecting is a publicist's nonattendance of control over who finally gets the headway. This is in light of the fact that the appointment of in-store free specimens is controlled by clients' readiness to take the sample.

2.3 Literature Review

Organizations are focusing to change the approach of in-store marketing the products to cater the market alteration. The primary issue faced is the skyrocketing knowledge about the products among the target consumers of the product and rising competition. This has made it mandatory for manufacturing organizations and retail chains to find new and innovative ways to market their product and focus more on experiential sales. This also mandates the marketers to stay abreast with the latest advancements of the industry and maintain the database of the ongoing demands of the consumer.

Sales promotion has become a vital part of the overall marketing strategy. It bolsters product trials among non-users, loyal users and also makes new customers switch brands. Sales promotions include discounts coupons, price offs, free gifts, free samples and product trials etc. (Harish and Suchitra (2010)). These campaigns make a psychological and emotional impact on target segment consumers and hence increase sales by improving upon the purchase quantity and frequency.

A research study conducted by Donnelly Marketing, Inc. shows that 1 in every 4 companies offer free samples to promote new products while approximately 1 one 2 do so to promote their already existing products. Though product sampling is a powerful tool, it adds to a huge amount of costs/investments. Hence, it is important that managers carefully examine the costs associated with product sampling.

Over the last few decades sales advancement has become of great interest to researchers. However, research studies have focused on some tools of sales promotion, such as price cutback and couponing, and have put little highlight on others. One particularly important promotional tool that was highly neglected in the literature is product sampling.

A number of research papers have been written to understand the buying decision factors of the target consumers like:

- Kempf and Smith(1998)- First purchase based on brand or product

- Marks and Kamins (1988) – Trials/Sampling improves belief and attitude

- Havlena and Holbrook (1986) – Emotional and cognitive antecedents of trial on product evaluation

- Fazio and Zanna (1978) – Advertising(indirect experience) and trials(direct experience) affect the attitude and purchase intention of consumers

- Scott and Yalch (1980) – Price incentives and trial improve interaction of product and consumer

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The biggest bottleneck which still remains is the variability in the markets based on demographics like geography, average income and earnings of people etc. This makes the research null and void at those places where the demographics of consumers don’t match the population. For example, the research published in Switzerland might give flawed results in India as consumer profiles are different. Even the results in Delhi and Mumbai might give different results attributing to the difference in buying behaviors.

Clearly more research on product sampling is needed to find its determinants and understand its effects on sales, purchase intentions, free samples trial and brand image. Hence, the main goal of the present paper is to help understand the importance perceived by consumers of free sampling and in-store trials. More precisely, the study should addresses three major issues:

(1) Assessing the effectiveness of product sampling in terms of usage

(2) Drawing a consumer profile of individuals that are reactive to free samples trial

A research conducted by Lammers (1991) concluded that in-store sampling boosted sales but only for small purchases. Steinberg and Yalch (1978) dod a research to understand the shopping behavior of obese and non-obese consumers by sampling chocolates. Study concluded that sampling attracted obese customers and the sales increased multifold.

Free samples are generally considered to be dedicated to new products. They are effective in generating word of mouth for new products and to accelerate their adoption rate.

Impulse Buying behavior: Earlier shopping was a planned activity but new trends have seen consumers who spend a decent amount on spontaneous buys, primarily due to shortage of time. This presents a great opportunity for the marketers to increase sales by attracting impulsive buyers. Recent researches depict that 62% of supermarket sales and 80% of aggregate sales (Kollat and Willett (1967)) are actually impulsive sales. Impulse buys account for about 1/3rd of sales in a departmental stores. Factors like in-store promotions, cash discounts, price offs, coupons etc. stimulate the consumers and impulsive